Cheesy Dreams

I had such an odd dream last night.  I remember it fairly vividly and have found it has been playing on my mind all day.  What do you think?  Could I have been over-indulging in cheese?  Is it cheese that is supposed to make you have odd dreams?

It started with a very familiar scene to me, paying a £5 fee to go swimming at the pool in the town where I grew up.  For some reason I had my lap top in the pool with me…and it was still working even when I dived underwater with it.  Then I decided I had finished with it so I would close it down and put it back in the changing rooms.  While it was closing down I started looking around and noticed all the tiles and grout were immaculate, pure sparkly white.  Then I headed to the changing room to put the laptop away.  For a moment I considered getting dressed and leaving because I was tired but then I recalled I had paid £5 and I had not really had a proper swim, because I had been on my laptop for so long.

 

At that instant one of my sisters came into the changing room, surprised to see me.  Lots of other people came in behind her.  I went back out to the pool.  I was about to slip into the water when I noticed I had my trainers on.  So I took them off and decided rather than return to the changing room I would leave them on a bench against the wall.  I went to the water again and noticed my purse and keys were in my hand, so I decided I would put them with my trainers.  I returned to the water, and now I was aware I had on a summer hat and sunglasses.  Back to the bench.

 

By the time I came back to the water something odd was happening.  One side of the pool had lessons starting, swimming lessons and canoeing lessons…at the same time.  Along the other side were fishermen casting their rods into the swimming pool.  So now it was just the middle of the pool where there was room to swim.  I headed over there.

 

I tried to swim a length of the pool but my route was blocked again.  There were three women sitting on the side of the pool talking and cooking on some kind of little stove.  It was a dream of course because…. what came off that stove were giant pastries, like Danish pastries with cinnamon and icing, some had thick custard.  They saw me lingering and offered to move out of the way so I could reach the water.  I said I didn’t mind stepping over them, but I was jealous of what they were making.  Anyway I finally made it into the water, but I felt so ill I had to get straight out.  That was the end of my dream!!

 

Strange hey!

 

Some parts make sense.  I love swimming.  I love clean tiles.  I love seeing freshly tiled and grouted surfaces.  My youngest sister and her husband are both tilers.  I met my brother in law when I was 16 and he was 11 when he was helping his dad tile a swimming pool.  It was one of my first volunteer projects.  I had swimming lessons for years.  I loved canoeing, but only did it in school trips and on holidays.  I knew they ran  canoeing lessons at the local pool, but my parents said they could not afford for me to go to canoeing lessons in addition to other hobbies I already was involved in.  Mum and Dad made sure all seven of us children had swimming lessons, but there was no way they could accommodate all of our faddish interests in ballet, trampolining, canoeing, pottery and so on.

I don’t really understand the fisherman in the dream. (Maybe they are trying to catch me to stop me from reaching my goals.) The women who were baking on the stove…well, I guess I like baking, I like any kind of cake or pastry and I’m trying to be good (want to be as almost perfect as possible for my lovely Goldfinch), so it probably does make sense that I’m dreaming about pastries and cakes. (Again, possibly the cakes and bakes have slowed me down and distracted me from reaching some goals.)

I think the whole dream of the swimming pool becoming more and more crowded and all the obstacles to me actually getting in the water and having a swim is kind of a parallel to my current reality.  Since I was the victim of a crime almost three years ago, I have trying to rebuild my life and get back to where I was before.  Slowed down even by things that I had forgotten to do, such as how I had forgotten to take my trainers off and take my hat off, delaying me getting into the pool. It seems to me that that part of the dream was perhaps to do with me getting a bit frustrated with all the little things that I seem to need to do before I can be where I want to be.

I don’t normally try to interpret my dreams!  I certainly don’t think they are omens!  But I do think your brain is trying to sort and make sense of all sorts of input and connections.

 

Have I been eating too much cheese?

 

 drtanya@saltedcaramel – Salted Caramel